"Basico" kids come to the park to help reforest after losses from Pine Beetle
You know what they say about all work and no play... 
Workin' girl...
Where to begin? We've been making headway in the park, most of my work has been up there the last few weeks. As you can see, went up with members of the park admin group to install monkey bars, see-saws, swings, barbecue grills, and trash cans last thursday. It looks great! Next step; letrines and picnic tables.
you can also see that i had the help of the agriculture class at the local middle school (basico) to plant over 200 trees the 2nd week in May. We hope to have them back to continue reforestation in an area of the park where we had a serious pine beetle infection last year-over 120 pine trees were cut down in an attempt to stop the animal from spreading to the rest of the park. Unfortunately, it has been detected in the park again not from last year's contaminated site. We are working to contain it yet again. But the park hasn't been the area hardest hit by pine beetle-private land owners growing pine trees for lumber didn't know what to do to control the infection and have lost large areas of forest as a result. Which means that San Carlos Sija needs to do serious reforestation projects in the following years to rehabilitate the deforested area.. I will be following through in the month of june with looking for more community help in reforestation.
The rainy season threatens to begin; the second week in may it rained hard every day-then it hasn't rained for a week. Definitely different from last year-it started pouring in April last year and rained almost every day throughout the 'summer' months. Who knows what the next few months will bring weatherwise....
I am renewing my interest/dedication in the Flora and Fauna project for the park-birdwatching continues to be an interest and i am finally diving into the plant identification. This month I hope to get common names for most of the plants in the park, followed by their scientific names through routine 'detective work'... cross referencing common names in the index for the daunting "Flora of Guatemala" document that i have in pdf on my computer. As they say here 'poco a poco' a more comprehensive picture of the plants in our park will emerge. I am quite lucky to be working with a healthy forest ecosystem-i am always seeing new flowers, birds, and mushroom season is almost upon us. I saw a Blue-throated Motmot for the first time last week in the park. Always something new and exciting there.
I hope everyone is healthy and happy out there...
-Amber
